Corrupting the foundation of America, one cake at a time. – How The IRS Used Civil Asset Forfeiture To Ruin The Lives Of Two Connecticut Bakers | Zero Hedge
The gift that keeps on giving…
For the past three years, the brothers have been fighting to get their money back, maintaining they’d done nothing wrong. The IRS has responded by subjecting David, 53, and his brother Larry, 69, to a series of increasingly aggressive legal maneuvers — including threats of significant prison time and additional fines — in an attempt to strong-arm them into permanently forfeiting their assets.
On Tuesday, the Institute for Justice, a libertarian public interest law firm, filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut on behalf of Vocatura’s Bakery, demanding that the IRS promptly return their money. The suit argued that the Vocaturas were just the latest example of the government hastily seizing property, and then going to extreme and even unconstitutional lengths to justify it after the fact.
Hours after the suit was filed, the IRS said it would finally give the Vocaturas their money back. But the prosecutor didn’t drop the case. Instead, he now plans to mount an expansive investigation into the bakery’s finances, looking for a reason to bring criminal charges against the brothers.
At issue in the Vocaturas’ case are hundreds of deposits between March 2007 and April 2013 that ranged from $7,000 to $9,900 — a total of around $2.8 million. The Vocaturas say the deposited money was from the bakery’s sales, as they were doing mainly cash business at the time, and they have a less suspicious explanation for why the deposits were so close to the reporting limit. David Vocatura says a representative from their local bank told him that an employee had to fill out forms each time they brought in more than $10,000, so he decided to make life easier for the bank attendants by making smaller, more frequent deposits.
If the IRS has proof that the Vocaturas were deliberately structuring payments or hiding illicit proceeds, it hasn’t provided it.
You can’t make this stuff up.
